<p>THis sounds like something that belongs on the ‘smile and nod’ thread. I think there are lots of grandparents out there who are clueless as to how different the world is from twenty or thirty or more years ago. My sister’s kids take ‘regular classes’ (not Honors) in a bad public school down South. Our kids attend a more rigorous school farther north. All my mom hears is that my sister’s kids always get A’s. Then my mom was stunned when they didn’t get into the college that my sister had just assumed they would get into. It could be that the scenario you’re describing just hasn’t finished playing out yet – and that it’s not actually going to end the way your MIL envisions. I think your MIL shouldn’t be counting her chickens before they’re hatched.</p>
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<p>That’s something that a lot of MILs do (make sure that you don’t do
that when you are a MIL). You can certainly point out the truth: that
it is what you can afford and it doesn’t reflect on your kids. If your
MIL persists, then you could just ask her if she’s willing to fund a
more expensive option.</p>
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<p>Your problems have more to do with your relationships with your MIL
and husband and maybe your in-laws from what you’ve written. My wife
doesn’t really understand the college stuff and I had to come up to
speed on a lot of it and, as you know, it can be a lot of work to
deal with the college stuff and the high-school stuff. It can be
tougher when you have people around that don’t understand and that
don’t make the effort to learn. There is a huge amount of stuff to
learn and do so it’s not surprising when one spouse lets the other
spouse take care of it all if they show the inclination to do so.</p>
<p>You know that someone has to do this stuff and if you don’t do it, it
won’t get done - so you do it and put up with the ignorant comments.
I don’t know if you want to get your husband up to speed or delegate
some of the parental responsibilities or dish some to your kids. It
may or may not work out and they will most likely be less efficient
at it than you are.</p>
<p>OP, sorry you are going through this. A few comments.</p>
<p>I like to put off confrontations until they absolutely need to happen. How about expanding you kids lists to include higher ranked privates … this will help deal with family discussions about what schools to which your kids can get accepted … and also help your husband understand the financial realities now. One HUGE caveat … your kids need to understand just how who as parents can pay for school and how much financial aid will be needed to attend.</p>
<p>Second, I think you are not giving colleges enough credit for understanding the profiles of high schools. They expect kids to take advantage of the opportunities given to them … in some sense kids from backgrounds of means are expected to do more because they have had more opportunities. In addition, colleges ask for school profiles so a school that does not rank and has 100 valedictorians is not fooling top schools. I doubt those kids “skating by” will achieve killer admissions.</p>
<p>You cannot predict every factor that a college will consider in admissions or in financial aid. Apply to a wide range of colleges, and wait to see which offer the best value for the net price. </p>
<p>I find it hard to believe that checking the box to apply for financial aid would matter that much for admissions for most private schools. That is because a high percentage of all students do apply for financial aid. However, there are colleges that try to be careful to not admit too many students with extremely high need - the college doesn’t want to be stuck paying for their food and housing.</p>
<p>Many colleges do try to pick full pay students from their waiting lists. The rationale is that the financial aid budget has been used up by that time. They want to direct most of their aid towards the best students, and some of the wait list students may be more average.</p>
<p>OP, I agree with the general idea that you should just quietly do what you need to do with the kids to prepare them to their best advantage, and let your H and MIL think whatever silly things they want to think. The admissions results and the aid letters will tell the rest of the story. IF you and H have settled on a budget.</p>
<p>But the danger in letting H think whatever he wants, is that the kids may get into schools that suit him, but without anywhere near the money you need, and H may push for rash financial measures at the last minute, due to his own desire to keep up appearances for his family of origin, compounded by his lack of emotional preparation for reality.</p>
<p>I can tell you that in my own case, I have been saving since they were born, and I have studied this stuff very closely through my eldest’s 9th and 10th grade years, and I see that we will not be able to do for our kids as much as I had hoped. (I had wanted to give them carte blanche, full pay anywhere, and it won’t be happening.) There have been a series of emotions that I have gone through over this. Gradually I have made peace with it, realizing that what we can do for them is still very good. My H has come along on the fact-finding and emotional journey, so we are in the same place. The kids know the budget, have seen a lot of schools already, and know what the budget will and won’t cover. They know that the nicest options will be going to friends with more money, better grades, or both. They feel wistful about it, but part of becoming an adult is coming to terms with financial reality and one’s own strengths and weaknesses. It’s better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick. They can still have an education.</p>
<p>I have seen other families where a naive and emotionally unprepared parent makes some very bad long-term financial decisions for himself and the kid (loans up the wazoo that will be an undue burden for decades) because the parent persisted in assuming that Junior would be going off to certain places, and then in May of 12th grade it becomes obvious that Junior has squeaked into his most glamorous options as a full payor only, and they’re too expensive, but it’s just too much for the whole family to get their minds around so quickly, so the parent runs to the bank and clutches at straws.</p>
<p>Fundamentally, what comes through in your posts is the additional pain and burden of H being more aligned with MIL on this, than with you. It is one thing for uninformed or insensitive grandparents to make stupid remarks. It’s another thing for your marital partner and co-parent to remain mired in a naive and unrealistic view of it all. I think what is probably most important for you and your kids is that H come to agreement with you on the budget for college and how it will be paid.</p>
<p>Even middle-aged people can become surprisingly childish and desperate when competing with siblings for mommy’s approval.</p>
<p>How about asking your DH why he doesn’t make more money and pay full tuition to private schools for his children. Looks like his sibs do? How hard can it be?</p>
<p>You’ve gotten good advice and commiseration already, and I’ll second a lot of it.</p>
<p>First, the MIL issue is separate from the question of where your kids should apply. She’s been your MIL for a long time and you’ve coexisted fine so far. If she’s insulting your kids in front of you and them, I’d have no problem saying, “You’re comparing apples and oranges when you compare grades from two different schools. You’re comments are insulting and not productive, so please stop being so critical.” I think there are times when one should ask a spouse to run interference with his/her parents, but if you’re in a room with them and they’re being this negative, it’s your right and your responsibility to speak up for yourself and your kids in a calm, firm, and respectful way. And I’d also have a conversation with your kids about not letting Grandma and her uninformed views get to them.</p>
<p>As far as applying to schools, it’s not all about whether or not the need for financial help will affect their admissions, it’s all about finding a school they can be admitted to and afford (as you already know). Don’t spend too much energy convincing everyone ahead of time about the realities (it would be nice if your H were somewhere between neutral and realistic rather than stubbornly unrealistic, but oh well). Inform yourself, inform your kids, and move on with building a solid list of schools to apply to. Make sure your kids know that they’ll apply to a bunch of schools, and that it’s most likely they’ll end up with some that they are accepted to and can’t afford. Educate them about what it really means to incur a bunch of debt for school, tell them you won’t go along with them doing that, and so at the end of the day, they’ll have to choose from among the schools they can afford to go to and be philosophical about the unaffordable great school that “got away.” </p>
<p>You’re smart to have them applying to instate schools they can afford (I’m assuming you’re in Texas?). I’d recommend looking at other schools with a reputation for giving good money as well. You don’t always need perfect grades to get great scholarships. There are OOS public schools that give full tuition for good score and grades (ie, over a 3.5). There are private schools that give great scholarships for a combination of scores, grades, and EC’s. If you start a post asking for suggestions with as much detail as you’re comfortable with about your son, you’ll get some ideas of colleges to look into. </p>
<p>For us, we had better luck getting scholarships than straight out need based aid that covered enough. Even schools with generous need based aid usually leave you needing some loans. (We really wanted our kids completely debt free upon graduation). And our kids weren’t straight A HS kids. They had good grades, good to great scores, and pretty darn good and unusual EC’s. </p>
<p>If your kids are happy with the instate options, and don’t feel like having a busy application season spreading a wide net, then leave it at that. If H or MIL or S really want to apply to some big names, let them apply and see where the chips fall. All it costs is some time and energy and a little bit of money to apply to more schools. If your kids really don’t want to go to the state school, do a bunch of homework and find some schools OOS likely to give $$. My oldest really wanted to get out of our home state, and we couldn’t afford private schools, so he applied to 14 schools, most of which had a reputation that made me think he’d get decent money out of them. My second S was perfectly happy staying in state, so he only applied to his favorite in state, one OOS public with an awesome guaranteed scholarship for his stats, and one top 40 private school that he really, really loved. </p>
<p>I’m not usually a coffee drinker and I had two cups today. I think that’s why I’ve cranked out such a long rambling post. 
My bottom line - minimize the family drama by telling MIL (ever so politely) to stop being obnoxious and move forward with smart plans and let H keep up or be happily ignorant of the process - whatever he chooses. Make sure your kid knows the realities and doesn’t take the BS from family members personally.</p>
<p>And use CC - you’ll get great information here!</p>
<p>It looks to me like you and DH aren’t on the same page about money. Are you the one who manages the accounts and pays all the bills? If so, it may be time to sit him down and get him to focus a bit on that. Happydad is all but clueless about our family finances. He really wants nothing to do with it, and lets me take care of all the bills. He plays with his IRA funds (in a brokerage-type account) but that is it. Getting him to pay attention long enough to come to some kind of understanding about paying for college was a huge challenge. Fortunately, even though his retention of family financial details isn’t good, he is able to remember that Happykid’s college choice had to be affordable, and that I’d pinned down options that are affordable and that she likes. </p>
<p>So, pull out the financial records, run the Net Price Calculators at several of the colleges and universities on your kid’s lists. Just for laughs, run the NPCs at Grannie’s favorites too. Show DH what those places are likely to expect your family to pay, and talk about just exactly what has to get cut from the family budget in order to meet those costs. That will help you get closer to some kind of agreement about the money issues.</p>
<p>Wishing you all the best!</p>
<p>It sounds as if your MIL is utterly uneducable, at least on this subject. Otherwise, she might have happened to notice the hundreds of stories in every newsmagazine, paper, and website on the difficulties our children face in college admissions and how vastly different things are for them than when we were applying.</p>
<p>Since she really can’t be reasoned with, I’d just go with humor. “Yeah, we totally screwed up as parents. I knew we shouldn’t have put beer in the kids’ bottles when they were babies. Probably lowered their IQs 20 points.” or “I’m sure my niece will do very well at Stanford, but I can’t afford to fund a chair, and I absolutely refuse to sleep with the dean of admissions on moral grounds. That’s where I draw the line.”</p>
<p>People just don’t get autism-spectrum disorders, especially when the kids are bright and high-functioning. Really, it’s always going to be the parents’ fault.</p>
<p>As far as your husband goes, well, you have work to do. Fill out a FAFSA together, and sit down with a financial advisor to determine what you can pay. If he won’t listen to you, he might listen to an outsider telling him what he can expect to pay.</p>
<p>The next time your husband ask you why your kids don’t get straight A’s, ask him if he’s rather they get an A, and still have to retake the class in college, or a B, and pass the placement test. Make it personal, so maybe he understands. If he thinks they should apply to top notch schools, like their cousins, perhaps they should. That doesn’t mean they have to go. I have no doubt they would be the ones to get in, and not the cousins. The top colleges know full well which schools pad their grades. They know which ones name 25 valedictorians (such that the title doesn’t mean anything), and which don’t name one at all. </p>
<p>As far as MIL, again maybe you need to put in applications at 1 or 2 “top” schools to shut her up. Throw her a bone, it doesn’t mean the kids have to go there. With luck (and it might not take much), your kids will get in, and the cousins won’t - then where will the cousins be going? If the cousins do get in, will they graduate in 4 years? It may take some time, but at some point it will either be clear to MIL and the rest of the family that you were right, or it will be clear they are the ones wearing blinders. </p>
<p>Realistically, you need to focus on your own kids, and maybe bring your husband along for the ride. If you involve him in the process on the finance end (have him run the NPC for the schools he’s interested in), he might come around a bit. It might turn out the rest of his family is making assumptions about cost, just as he is. It’s not your problem if they don’t find out until May. At that point your kids will send their deposit to a school they are happy to attend. Who knows what their kids will do - and more importantly, who cares?</p>
<p>It will be interesting what kind of scores your children’s cousins get on the SAT and ACT tests. Colleges consider those carefully when admitting even straight A students.</p>
<p>Interesting discussion.</p>
<p>To the title question I would say, yes, but mostly with respect to those who can take advatage of an Early Decision boost. Students who need to apply RD to compare merit/FA offers lose that edge. My D learned about that reality last admissions cycle. </p>
<p>It doesn’t matter much, as there are dozens of great options out there for any given student, if they apply smartly and broadly.</p>
<p>“Add to it that MIL keeps making remarks about my kids and how they must be bad students if they are not planning to go to the same colleges as so-n-so.”</p>
<p>Who cares what other people say?<br>
Teach that to your kids, and they will be many steps ahead of the game.</p>
<p>MILs sure love to do that. I think they are just bored. With us it’s my husband complaining about his mother. She always critisizes what we and our kids are doing compared to his sister’s family. The thing I keep reminding him is that she also criticizes her daugher and her family, comparing them to us when we are not there. She just likes to stir the pot. Let your kid apply to one outrageously expensive school and if they get in politely ask her if she will pay. My parents paid for my ivy league education and although I’d like to think I could get in now, my life hasn’t turned out any better professionally or personally than my state school educated, pell grant recipient husband’s. My first kid loves his non-prestigious small LAC that gave him a large merit scholarship, some financial aid, was reasonalbly priced and lets him play varsity D3 soccer. As long as he is happy and successfull what more could I want.</p>
<p>^Congratulations on your graduation from an Ivy school, marriage, and successful parenthood all by the age of 18! All things considered, it’s pretty good advice. May we all be that happy with our kids’ accomplishments 
and I hope your parents are.</p>
<p>During my childhood I constantly heard “Your cousin X is doing so well at Y” from my paternal grandmother. I never knew what to make of it. Was I supposed to try to achieve similar things? Long after that grandma was gone, I learned that cousin X had been constantly informed that I had been excelling at Z. We had a good laugh over this, and consulted with the last aunt in the family. Her take on things is that grandma was proud of all of our accomplishments, and wanted us to know how clever and wonderful our cousins who lived so far away really were. We’re all great friends now, and can forgive grandma for this goofy tactic. But we sure aren’t repeating it in our families!</p>
<p>I think you need to tune out the “haves and the have not” discussion, ignore MIL and with your DH - agree to disagree. At this point, you kids are your top priority. I wouldn’t let them apply to a school that you know is financially out of reach…this causes heartache for the child and will create havoc on your marriage. Let your kids know up front how much $$$ you can/will contribute and help them select schools where they can get a great FA package. </p>
<p>The whole senior year/college app process can be a stressful time for students AND the families. I think it is easier on families to acknowledge that the emotions factors exist, but try and set the majority of them aside and focus on the facts.</p>
<p>(if you are taking the lead on the college search process, I think you can save yourself a lot of heartache/arguments by not sharing all your early findings/details with your DH)</p>
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<p>Because all he learned at school was how to goof off for an easy A?</p>
<p>“The children of families who CAN afford to pay full freight have a HUGE admissions advantage these days when applying to colleges that are need aware, as most are.”</p>
<p>This was posted earlier in this thread. How true is this?</p>
<p>I know I shouldn’t laugh but…LOL (there are times I feel this way)</p>
<p>That was to Sorghums comment. Sorry…the quote part did not work.</p>